Google pulls plug on Lively

That's that for Google's 3D virtual world it seems

Google is set to pull the plug on Lively, it's Second Life style virtual world that the company only announced back in July.

Google Lively, as many noted at the time of the launch announcement, was remarkably similar to Linden Labs' Second Life and Sony's forthcoming 'Home' service for PlayStation 3.

S'all about the avatars

Creating 3D avatars of oneself, what with this week's release of the New Xbox Experience, is seemingly flavour of the month for gamers and tech fiends.

In Lively, users were to be able to create their own 3D "rooms," and deck them out with furniture, personalise the space with themed music and so on, visit their mates' rooms and stream photos and video.

No more, so it seems.

The mighty Google has decreed that the end of that particular Second Life clone is nigh, with Lively closing down in December, as you can see right here on Google's own blog.